Why do we make things by hand? And why do we make them beautiful? Led by the question of why working with our hands remains vital and valuable in the modern world, author and maker Melanie Falick went on a transformative, inspiring journey. Traveling across continents, she met quilters and potters, weavers and painters, metalsmiths, printmakers, woodworkers, and more, and uncovered truths that have been speaking to us for millennia yet feel urgently relevant today: We make in order to slow down. To connect with others. To express ideas and emotions, feel competent, create something tangible and long-lasting. And to feed the soul. In revealing stories and gorgeous original photographs, Making a Life captures all the joy of making and the power it has to give our lives authenticity and meaning.

She takes the same train every day. But this is a journey she’ll never forget.

Amanda’s done it! She’s finally managed to save up enough money to hand in her resignation so she can follow her dream of becoming a writer. She just has a few more days left to serve out her notice and then she can put that daily commute from Brighton to London behind her forever.

But then, on her commute home from London to Brighton, she meets a charming stranger – who seems to know everything about her. He delivers an ultimatum. She needs to give him the code for the safe where she keeps her savings before the train reaches Brighton – or she’ll never see [her daughter] Louise again. Convinced that the threat is real, Amanda is stunned, horrified. She knows she should give him the code, but she can’t. Because she also knows there is a terrible secret in that safe which will destroy her life and Louise’s too…

What she saw in the wood would change her life forever...

While walking her dog Buddy in the woods behind her house, Fran stumbles upon a scene that will change the course of her life. In a somewhat secluded den around an old yew tree, she sees local teen Tyler standing on a crate, his hands tied behind his back, his mouth duct taped, and a noose around his head.  She sees the two men who have him tied up there. She sees them kick the crate and murder him.

Drawing on her years working in social services, Fran is able to keep her wits about her long enough to tell the police exactly what she saw. But the incident has left her shaken. No matter how hard she tries to get back to her normal life, Fran can’t shake off the guilt that assails her – could she have done something to save Tyler?

After the massive reading block brought on by Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart last year, I decided to started the new year by reading one of my favorite authors – Joanne Harris.

I started the year with The Gospel of Loki, which is a delightful retelling of the stories of the Norse gods – from the viewpoint of the trickster god Loki.

If you’ve read Norse Gods by Neil Gaiman or any other author, you would be familiar with all of these stories, there’s nothing really new there.

But what happens after the gods fall at Ragnarok? Is that the end of the road for Odin, Loki, Thor, Freya, and all the other Aesir and Vanir? Or can they return to reclaim their lost glory?

Ever since she was a child, Samira Joshi has known she wants to be a spy. And why not? Her parents are elite RAW agents, and have trained Samira in spy craft since she was a child. 

Suddenly, though, her mother, who was the biggest supporter of her dreams, has taken a U-turn, telling Samira to forget about spy games and focus on becoming a doctor instead. 

But Samira is having none of it.

“I live in the Cube. I write on its glossy gray cinder-block walls however I can – with my nails before, with pencils now that the guards bring me some supplies.

Light comes through the small glass-block window high on the wall, reached only by the many-legged crawling creatures that also reside here. I am fond of the spiders and ants, which have set up separate dominions and manage to avoid each other in our shared nine-square-meter universe.“

So begins Against the Loveless World, and our introduction to Nahr. She’s confined in the Cube, but her mind wanders free. To Bilal, to Kuwait, to Jordan and Palestine. This is her story. But more than that, it is the story of Palestinian refugees, of the people who remained in Palestine, of how they live their lives and how they resist.